A Threads post that I recently saw opened my eyes to a fun trick with Apple’s iOS 18 iMessage effects: You can make little emoji / ASCII-style animations with them.
I lost the original post (if that was you, let me know!), but I immediately used the idea. If you’ve done this, feel free to share your best ones. Below is a gallery of mine.
It has zero bearing on the experience of actually using your phone, but I agree with iFixit that Apple’s choice to explore new battery tech in every iPhone 16 except for the Max is... odd.
The 16 / 16 Plus have a very cool new removal method. The standard Pro’s battery is encased in metal. But the Max? Regular battery like always.
Instead of buying the new iPhone 16, I decided to change the look of my trusty iPhone 15 Pro instead. The name might suck, but I’ve fallen in deep like with the $39.99 Torras 360-degree Ostand R Rotated Stand MagSafe Case anyway.
I had no idea I was a kickstand guy!
Along with Apple Intelligence, the new iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 betas introduce a handy new way to transfer files when mirroring your iPhone, as spotted by 9to5Mac. Apple previously said the drag-and-drop capability would arrive later this year.
It lets people who are deaf or hard of hearing feel music through tactile feedback by playing haptic tracks alongside known music when on Wi-Fi or cellular data, which is already supported in Apple Music and Apple Music Classical.
It can also make your iPhone sound like an Atari game.
Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg that Apple is “racing” to complete the second set of Apple Intelligence features it plans to release this year, lining up Genmoji, ChatGPT, and Image Playground for a December launch with iOS 18.2.
Meanwhile, some Siri updates could launch sooner than previously rumored with 18.3, but the “biggest” update is apparently iOS 18.4, which could arrive in March.
Check out this image from Apple’s battery replacement manual for the iPhone 16. With the 16 and 16 Plus, you can now use electricity to remove the adhesive that keeps the battery in place. That’s just cool as hell.
The 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max are stuck with boring, more traditional pull tabs.
There’s a lot more to the iPhone 16 Pro and the Apple Intelligence-less launch version of iOS 18, but if you need a reason to consider upgrading now, it might be that confusing camera.
Maybe Apple should have waited to do this until next month?
